Creep
by Read Me And Weep
Summary: He's slightly obsessed with her. It isn't creepy or anything though...


**A/N 2**: I went through and fixed grammar mistakes and tweaked some dialogue and confusing sentences!

**A/N:** Alright, so the original song that I was inspired by…I tried writing it and I got bored because it felt like the same plot line I feel that I always use. Or maybe since I use the same characters every single time I feel unoriginal, but whenever I try to write about anyone else…it feels wrong. Anyways, this is inspired by "Creep" by Radiohead. I had this angst-ridden thing pictured, and it turned into something a bit more humorous, or at least I hope it did. Enjoy.

* * *

She was so beautiful, so intelligent, and so perfect. It annoyed the hell out of him. How was he supposed to deal with someone who was so bloody brilliant it made him want to stab his brains out just to be able to tolerate it? Although when he thought about it, if someone like that was in Slytherin, it would not annoy him. He would immediately go for the girl and either he would succeed and be happy, or fail and get over it, one way or another. But this way? He was constantly tantalized by her. Constantly.

They had been in school together for years and there had been no thawing of their hatred towards one another, though. At first he had taunted her because he was a stupid school boy who thought that's what you did if you liked a girl; you got her attention by mocking her. And it did not help that she decided to be friends with people he absolutely loathed on sight. How idiotic on her part. Idiotic on his part, though, for not thinking through to the fact that mocking her and her friends relentlessly would never get her to like him. When it came to her set of standards and values, Draco knew he would never exactly match up anyways. He was a twisted and dark soul compared to what she wanted. Compared to what she deserved.

So as the years passed, Draco always held extra contempt for Hermione Granger. When she beat him for the number one grade spot year after year, he had to hear from his father how embarrassing it was to be beaten by a girl, a filthy Mudblood no less. This only caused his annoyance with her to skyrocket. As if he needed to hear about Hermione bloody Granger in the safety of his own home. It wasn't like he already didn't think about her every second of every day; he was fairly obsessed with her. His observations of her amounted only to slightly less than stalking if one thought about it.

He chose not to think about it though. Instead he focused his thoughts on all the alone time she spent at the library, the only place Weasel-bean and Scarbrains didn't faithfully follow her. While they were there together (and by together he meant she sat at a desk dutifully studying and Draco behind shelves or in a corner with a clear view of her but hidden all the same), he would have explicit fantasies of him finally having the courage to go over there and be civil with her, and she would actually accept his niceties without scoffing. Not only would she accept it but she would announce that she too had been stalking him and was fairly obsessed with _him_. Or in his better fantasies he lived in a world where there were no cultural issues they had to deal with and neither of them had friends or family to worry about and they ran off together travelling the world and learning. And in his raunchier fantasies that always followed these creative ones, he imagined what a passionate lover she must be and how strong her lips and tongue and mouth must be since she babbled off so many useless facts every other second of the day. He would imagine how in his fantasy-relationship they would have copious amounts of sex and he would be the envy of every male in school. Or when the library was about to close, he had to condense these fantasies to going over to her and taking her right there on the library table. These day dreams would turn into real dreams where then he would be rudely awakened by Madam Pince, and seeing her wrinkled face staring down at him was enough to ruin his buzz.

So he was taken a bit off guard when during one of his longer fantasies (it was the middle of a Saturday and he knew Hermione would be studying for hours), he was interrupted by a cough in front of him by an unlikely figure.

"Malfoy? Are you paying any attention to me at all?"

Draco looked up at the frenzy of brown hair he had just been imagining in between his fingers. He had to cough a little to keep his voice from cracking.

"Of course not, Granger."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Are you done with that book? I've been waiting for you to finish with it for hours but it doesn't even seem as if you're reading it."

Draco glanced down at the random book he had grabbed from the shelves and had flipped open to make it appear as if he was studying.

"Not quite, Granger. I guess you'll have to wait a bit longer for it, then."

She huffed. "Malfoy, I wasn't even aware you were taking Arithmancy, I just need to look something up it will only take a second. Just let me see it." She grabbed for the book.

Before Draco even knew what he was doing he had grabbed her outstretched arm and was holding her hand gently.

He looked up at her, trying to decide if he should dare to feel hopeful.

When he saw her face, however, he realized he should _definitely _not dare.

Before he could say anything though, she had ripped her hand from his in disgust.

"Oh, ha-ha, Malfoy. You can just have your book." And she turned on her heel and stalked off to her table, packed her belongings and left, hours before he knew she had planned.

He had really managed to muck that up. He had a thin line; obsessing over Granger, and taunting her. He was always sure that they were two separate categories, and now he had just mixed them. What. An. Idiot.

* * *

"Malfoy's still staring, Hermione."

Weasley's loud whisper floated to his desk in the back of the Potions room. Damn it. He thought he had been managing to control his thoughts, or at least control what people thought his thoughts were. Again his eyes had betrayed him. This was the fourth time in Potions he had been caught staring. It was never by her, always by Weasel or Potty, but he had been caught. This was embarrassing. At least if she caught his eye it would be embarrassing and worth it. But no, Granger was staunchly ignoring him as well as Potter and Weasley's whispers. Instead, she continued working diligently on her potion. How wonderfully studious of her, really, but would it kill her to look over at him? He wasn't quite sure what he would do if she did spare him a glance, but he had to do something to fix this. He wasn't himself anymore; he couldn't openly mock their shiny little group with this fog surrounding his head.

Wait, fog?

Oh, bullocks. He had dropped his stirrer in his cauldron and it had melted, destroying his potion completely. Now he heard Head Trauma and Freckle Face's sniggers drifting back towards him as he began angrily vanishing the fog and potion with his wand.

* * *

After a week he finally found Hermione in the library again. After another week Hairy Otter and Carrot Top stopped accompanying her, and he gave her one more week of unhindered studying to let her guard down. Well, not completely down, since she didn't study her usual material at her regular intervals on her planned days. He hadn't figured out her new schedule yet. She probably was changing it around constantly, thinking he had purposely grabbed a book she would need to bother her. And the staring her two obnoxious overprotective friends had caught him doing had obviously freaked her out a bit. Not to mention she'd taken to wandering the halls with Weaselette more often than usual.

Even though all this time had passed, he still had not really formulated a plan as to what to do when he finally did get her alone. The mantra in his head kept telling him to 'Fix this, fix this, fix this…' but what was he supposed to fix? They just hated each other. Nothing had changed. Well maybe the fact that he had creeped her out. Obnoxious to creepy was something he had never intended to happen, but it had, and the only reasonable thing to do was to let her forget he was a creep and remind her he was a git. But he wasn't satisfied with this. Maybe it was all the fantasies catching up to him, maybe it was the fact that he had finally touched her hand and looked in her eyes, but whatever it was he knew he did not want things to go back to the way they had been. He wanted the enmity to end and to just see how things went from there.

And it was with that thought in his head that he abruptly stood up and walked over to where she sat. She didn't look up, completely enraptured by her book, so he coughed quietly. He had begun to sweat a little, doubts began to creep in his mind but he shoved them back and coughed again, much too loudly this time. So much so that it startled her and she jumped and looked up at him, her eyes wide, that is until they narrowed in recognition.

"Malfoy," she said, curtly.

"Granger," he practically squeaked.

She eyed him suspiciously. "Can I help you?"

"Well, yes." He stared at her, practically frozen. Where was his smoothness? Where was his edge? His coolness? His façade? Where was anything masculine or manly that he valued? He was like a little school girl, embarrassing himself, and he couldn't seem to stop.

"Yes?" Only a hint of suspicion tinged her voice now, it was mainly dripping with genuine bafflement.

"Er… Ireallylikeyouwhatdoyouthink?"

"Sorry?"

"Er, right. Sorry."

"No, what did you say? You mumbled."

Shit, shit, shit. "Oh, er, I meant. I'm sorry about the book thing. I should have just given it to you when you asked, you caught me off guard."

Now she looked completely surprised. To be honest, he felt the same way.

"Oh, well that's awfully…nice of you, Malfoy."

"Right, I'll be seeing you then." And with that he turned on his heel and fled back to his desk where he packed his things and left, hours earlier than he had intended. What the hell had he been thinking?

* * *

Two weeks later he was back at the library. He had dutifully tried to stay away, and sheer embarrassment had done its duty in keeping him away, but that had begun to fade, as well as the fact that his obsession could not be quelled. Now he had in his memory the feel of her hand in his as well as a look of pleasant surprise and off guard friendliness directed towards him from those warm brown eyes. Those two combined were too strong an aphrodisiac for him to stay away forever.

When he finally returned to the library he sat down at his customary table far away from Hermione's usual table, and tried to keep his eyes down until he worked his courage up enough to glance up. When he finally did, he was surprised to find those warm brown eyes staring back at him. She tentatively smiled at him and he almost felt his jaw drop. He fought the urge to look around him; he knew no one else was around. Her smile began to fade quickly and he realized his mistake.

Quickly he grinned back and waved. He stopped immediately when her eyes widened. Maybe she hadn't been smiling at him after all? No, she had. The too-energetic school girl wave probably freaked her out a bit, though. He wanted to smack his forehead out of frustration with his idiotic actions. He was surprised when she got up and walked towards him.

"Malfoy," She nodded at him.

"Granger," he nodded back.

"I was wondering, I need some help studying for the Potions exam, would you mind helping?"

"Er, sure."

Why couldn't he stop saying "er"? He sounded like a bumbling fool. He tried to make himself sound surer.

"Of course, yes."

She gave a small smile and walked away while he sat at his table, rooted in his chair, dumbfounded.

Halfway to her table, she turned around. "Malfoy? Aren't you coming?"

He felt dazed as he picked up his belongings and followed her back to her seat. He honestly had no idea what they talked about for the first twenty minutes or so, he was so dazzled by what was happening. It was like his fantasies were coming true…without the sexual part.

"Malfoy?" Her hand was gently placed on his.

He almost swallowed his tongue. Was the sexual part about to come true, too, then?

"Yes?" he practically rasped out.

Her hand lifted. "I asked you to quiz me on page 197 of my notes? You stopped responding."

"Oh, right, sorry."

After that he pushed all thoughts of fantasies out of his mind completely.

* * *

A few weeks of studying, talking, and even occasionally joking, Draco felt as if he was going to burst. Was this seriously happening? Exams were tomorrow and he was terrified this camaraderie would end. He had been formulating a kind of plan to hopefully stop their tentative friendship from ending. Well, really, less a plan, more an ultimatum. In his mind he saw that he either had to confess his love or lose her after exams. She wouldn't need to study with him after the exams, or at least not until the end of term exams rolled around. And that was several months of no contact, how was he supposed to handle that? Realistically, the situation probably did not even closely resemble that. But Draco was slightly irrational when it came to the thought of losing Hermione's company. He no longer openly mocked her friends in front of her, as he had learned quite quickly that resulted in her ignoring him until he gave a lavish heartfelt-sounding apology to her _and _her friends. He was never late to their study sessions, although he spent copious amounts of time grooming and preparing himself beforehand; this included staring in the mirror to perfect his appearance and practicing topics to talk about, as well as reading up on subjects she had mentioned previously. He was still, obviously, completely obsessed.

So it was with extra care that he prepared himself this day, their last study date before exams.

He got there early, and laid all of his things out on the table meticulously. His nervousness was making him slightly obsessive compulsive about belongings, but he hardly cared.

Hermione arrived and greeted him with her typical warm smile and sat down to get her things out. Her hair looked a little more disheveled than was usual, but that was probably from stress. She worried about tests and examinations more than most, which was funny since even without any studying she probably could beat at least 4/5 of the school. Just another trait Draco found absolutely captivating about her.

After the usual playful banter and a few hours of serious study, they began talking. This was the moment. He had been postponing it, but in a few minutes she would get up, stretch, and say goodbye to him forever. The library was practically empty, it was perfect. But his nerves were on fire. He felt butterflies, not fluttering, but rocketing around in his stomach. It was painful.

Hermione was in the middle of saying something, about what he was unsure, when he decided he had to get out with it.

"'Hermione,"

She stopped. "Sorry, was I boring you with house elf rights again? It's important but sometimes I get carried off with details of it that really only policy makers and elves themselves would care to—"

"Hermione,"

"Sorry, almost went off again." She smiled at him.

He inhaled deeply. This was it. The moment.

"I'minlovewithyoudoyoulovemetoo?"

She looked at him as if he had a second head.

"Sorry?"

He breathed deeply again and tried to calm himself. Don't muck this up now, Draco. Slow down. Explain. Don't creep her out.

"Hermione, I've really enjoyed these past few weeks. I've gotten to know you better and I've grown to really care about you. Actually, I've kind of always cared about you. I've just totally botched things up over the years and us studying together has meant so much to me so I guess what I'm trying to say is, do you want to go on a date with me? A Hogsmeade weekend is coming up and I—"

"You said you've always cared about me?" Her face was unreadable. He dove in.

"Really, it's a funny story. I sort of followed you around everywhere because I knew you hated me so I couldn't approach you but I wanted to be near you so I just watch you all the time and—"

"You. Did. What?"

Oh, shit.

She began to pack up her things.

"No, no, Hermione, it's not like that, you know what I mean! You never even knew I was there, I was hidden; it was really nothing!"

As she was packing she began to talk, hurriedly. "I always thought you were a little weird. I got a strange vibe from you all along. I always chalked it up to you just being a Malfoy, you know? A Slytherin. That you weren't watching me, just all Gryffindors. Mainly Ron and Harry and me because you loathed Gryffindors, and because Harry's famous and all. But, that is just barking, that you…followed me? Like, stalking? Creeping around in the corners to watch me? Honestly? And you care about me? You practically, no, you did, you tortured me throughout school! And that was caring for someone you like? Well that is, that is just about the most ridiculous. Just. Honestly!"

She stomped on her heels, turned sharply, and fled the library.

Draco let his forehead drop painfully to the table.

What. An. Idiot.

* * *

**A/N:** The end

Aren't I just mean? By the way, this is a One Shot. This really is The End.


End file.
